Printing mechanism for cylindrical articles



E. S. BRADFORD.

PRINTING MECHANISM FOR CYLINDRICAL ARTICLES.

APPLICATION FILED IULY 12,1919.

Patented Sept. 7, 1920.

4 SHEETSSHEET I.

im m gnven I0 E. S. BRADFORD.

PRINTING MECHANISM FOR CYLINDRICAL ARTICLES.

APPLICATION FILED JULY 12,1919.

1,85 1,830, Patented Sept. 7, 1920.

4 SHEE] SSHEET 2.

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PRINTING MECHANISM FOR CYLINDRICAL ARTICLES.

APPLICATION man JULY I2, I9I9.

1 35 1,8 30, Patented Sept. 7, 1920.

4 SHEEIS-SHEET 3.

E. S. BRADFORD.

PRINTING MECHANISM FOR CYLINDRICAL ARTICLES.

APPLICATION FILED JULY 12, I919.

Patented Sept. 7, 1920.

4 SHEE I'SSHEET 4.

UNITED STATES EIIG-ENE S. "BRADFORD, OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN.

PRINTING MECHANISM FOR CYLINDRIGAL ARTICLES.

Application filed July 12,

To all whom umay concern:

Be it lmown that I, EUGENE S. BRADFORD, a citizen of theUnited States, residing at Detroit, county of Wayne, State of Miehi-. gan, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Printing Mechanism for Cylindrical Articles, and declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact descrip tion of the same, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it pertains to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of this specification.

This invention relates to mechanism for printing or stamping a mark or lettering on the porcelain side portion of a spark plug or similar article, and has for its object an improved arrangement of parts by means of which the blanks to be imprinted may be fed either mechanically or by gravity to a holding carriage in which they are locked in-position and carried around through part of a revolution thereof to a point where they are individually acted upon by a printing block, after which the blanks are released into a runway or receptacle. While, as I have stated, my device is particularly directed to use with spark plugs, it is obvious that with modifications of slight degree it can be of equal utility in connection with bottles and similar cylindrical or partly rounded articles, and I desire the scope of this disclosure to be understood accordingly.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 is a front elevational view of my improved mechanism, with some of the parts necessarily more or less shown in phantom.

Fig. 2 is a plan view.

a Fig. 3 is a sectional elevation along the line 33 of Fig. 1, looking in the direction of the straight arrow pointing to the left. Fig. 4 is a partly sectional elevation along the line 44 of Fig. 1, looking in the direc tion of the straight arrow.

Fig. 5 is a detail perspective of the movable cam block by whose action the blanks are locked in place in the carriage which carries them forward to be acted upon by the printing blocks.

F1g. 6 is a detail view, partly in section, of one of the heads by which the spindle or end of each individual blank is rotatably held in position.

10, 11, and 12 represent standards or sup ports, on the first namedof which, 10, is

located a s igh y inclined runway 01' trough Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 7, 1920. 1919. Serial No. 310,358.

13, along which a supply of blanks 14 is adapted to travel, being held against undesired falling out at the end by the abutment or closure 15. In the top of the pair of standards 11 is rotatably journaled the shaft 16, to which are keyed in spaced relation, to rotate therewith and with each other, the blank carriage 17 and the actuating wheel 18. These two members, with their uniting and correlating rods are so located relatively to the delivery end of the runway13 that as they revolve about the shaft 16 each of the equidistantlyspaced peripheral portions 17 of the forward or front frame piece (as viewed in Fig. 1) receives a blank 14 which is locked in place during a portion of each revolution of the carriage by mechanism which will shortly be described in detail.

Midway between each of the blank-receiving spaces 17 as viewed from the position of Fig. 1 there are located in the eriphery of the wheel 18v radially disposed Geneva escapementl slots 20, which are adapted to be engaged by the studs 21 in the rotary cam members 22 which preferably form a block or body which is keyed on the shaft 23 which isrotatably journaled in the top of the standard 12.

On this shaft 23, though in another plane from these cam bodies 22, is also keyed, so as to rotate with the cam members 22 the pinion wheel 24, whose teeth mesh with those of a companion gear wheel 25 which is operatively connected by means of the pinion 25 with a fly wheel 26, or other suitable source of power. This shaft 23 also carries the body 'or web 27 on which, at suit able peripheral intervals, are radially arranged the individual printing blocks 28 which at each rotation engage the inking roller or pad 29, and a beveled disk 30, whose function will be described in a later paragraph. Viewed from above, as in Flg. 2, therefore, the two shafts 16 and 23 and their supported parts constitute operatively en aging carriages 'or Ferris wheels.

s shown particularly in Figs. 2, 3, and 4, the blank-locking mechanism appurtenant to each of the peripheral cage portions 18 of the carriage 18 consists of two coaxially disposed heads 31 and 41, supported at suit- ,able intervals on the forward plate 17. In each of these heads 31 and 41 is located a spring-projected plunger, as 32 and 42, the spring 33 being, however, of greater strength than the spring 43 for a reason that ing will be more easily understood if left for discussion in a later paragraph. Engaging about the studded outer end of the stem 32 is a yoke 35 which extends to one side of the head 31 and is connected at its outerend to the adjacent end of a push rod 36 which slidably engages through the plate 17 in axial parallelism with the shaft 16.

Supported in a laterally projecting portion of the standard 11 is the shaft 46, on which is carried the segment cam member 47, which is shown 'in enlarged detail in Fig, 5. The sloping face 48 of this cam member is adapted 'to engage each of the push rods 36 as they severally approach it when the blank-carriage is rotated, and by the time the plane top surface 49 of the cam is in engagement with the end of the push rod, the blank-holding heads 31 and'41 are opposite the end of the runway 15 and the foremost one of the blanks 16 rolls between them. As the end of the push rod rides down the slope 48 of the rock cam, this movement away from the push rod is hastened by the rocking away therefrom of the cam 47 due to the swing of the branch 52 of the rock arm mechanism under the push of the reach rod 53 which being yieldingly held in retracted position by the spring 55 is forced against the resiliency thereof, to the left (in the position of Fig. 1) by the engagement against its end of one of the cam members 2-2. This individual push rod 36 being no longer under the influence of the cam 47, the spring of superior strength 33, outweighing the opposite push upon the other end of the blank 16 of the inferior spring 43 forces the push rod to travel lengthwise, with movement of the head 32 until the spark plug blank is held firmly in position between them. While the cam member is acting similarly on the next push rod group of parts the spark plug blank that has become locked in position is traveling in the direction of the arrow shown at the upper left of Fig.1 until it approaches the diametrically horizontal position shown in Fig. 1, in which it is being acted upon by the printing block 28. During this period the beveled edge ofthe disk wheel 30 has been engaging in the corresponding groove 59 of the head 32 so that as the printing surface of the block 28 acts on the curved side of the blank it is being slightly rotated so that the action of the printing block 28 will be a true imprinting one rather than a wipaction.

After the imprinting operation has been completed, the turn of the carriage 17 moves the blank-holding member away from con tact of its groove 59 with the edge of the disk wheel 30, but the blank remains clamped in position between the heads 31 and 41 until the end of the push rod 36 engages the fixed cam projecti n 60 on the posed lower portion of one of the standards 11, by which it is forced lengthwise of itself and against the pressure of the spring 33 to a degree sufiicient to pull the head '31 away from the head 41 enou h to let the blank drop out. I have foun by experience that in certain types of sparking plug the cylindrical end so greatly outweighs the spindle end that if the springs 33 and 43 are made of equal strength, when the releasing movement of the push rod 36 takes place, the heavier or cylindrical end, starting to fall at the same instant as the lighter end which has been supported in the head 31, falls more rapidly and tends to make the blank as a Whole assume a vertical position when falling onto the delivery runway 61. By making the spring 33 superior in strength to the spring 43 I secure the projection and release of the spindle end of the blank a fractional part of a second ahead of the heavy cylindrical end whose greater rate of fall after it is once released does no more than overcome the handicap of the slightly earlier start of the other end, thus resulting in the even or horizontal fall of the blank onto the runway, just as is desired.

. It is of course obvious that some other kind of receptacle could be substituted for the delivery runway without departure from the spirit of my invention, just as an individual mechanical or manual feeding of the blanks into the heads of the holding carriage could be substituted for the first named runway 13.

What I claim is:

1. In combination with means for feeding a supply of blanks, a rotatable carriage having blank-receiving portions spacedly disabout its periphery in position to be successively filled from said feeding means, a rotatable member operatively connected with said carriage, a printing wheel adapted to peripherally engage the blanks as said carriage rotates, and means deriving timed actuation from the movement of said rotatable member whereby the individual blanks are locked in position in the carriage and released therefrom at the desired phases of each cycle of operations.

2. In combination with a rotatable carriage having blank-receiving spaces arranged at desired intervals about its periphery, means for automatically inserting a blank in each space as the carriage rotates, a rotatable actuating wheel adapted to peripherally engage said rotatable carriage to efiect its timed rotation, printing blocks spacedly that of said rotatable carriage in position to engage the blanks held therein, and means actuated by the movement of said rotatable actuating wheel whereby the blanks are locked in the slots and are held thereby until .each has been engaged by a printing block,

revolving about an axis parallel to and whereby they are thereafter automatically released.

3. The combination, with a rotatable carriage member having blank-receiving slots arranged at desired intervals about its periphery, of means for automatically feeding a blank into each slot as said carriage member is rotated, means for locking the blanks in place in their respective slots and for releasing them at a subsequent phase in the rotation of the carriage, a rotatable member adapted to eifect the timed rotation of the carriage member and to operate the locking and releasing mechanism of the blanks, and printing blocks arranged at suitable peripheral intervals on said rotatable member, adapted to act upon each of the blanks between the times of its locking in its slot and of its release therefrom.

4. In combination with a pair of rotatable carriage members, one of which is adapted to receive its rotative actuation from the movement of the other, a source of rotative actuation with which the second wheel is operatively connected a plurality of printing blocks arranged at intervals about the periphery of one of said carriage members, means for feeding a supply of blanks to peripheral receiving spaces on the other of said carriage members, means actuated by the movement of the other one of said carriage members for clamping each of the blanks in position with respect to its carriage member and for releasing it therefrom after it has been acted upon by oneiof the printing blocks on the first named carriage member.

5. The combination of a pair of rotatable carriage members in peripheral operative engagement with one another, a plurality of printing blocks mounted at desired intervals about the periphery of one of said carriage members, a locking mechanism deriving its actuation from the movement of said last named carriage member, whereby individual blanks fed to the other of said carriage members are held in desired peripheral arrangement with respect thereto while being presented by the rotative movement thereof to the action of the printing blocks on the first named carriage member, and means for automatically effecting the release of said blanks after the printing operation by said blocks has been completed.

6. In combination with a rotatable carriage, a plurality of blank-holding members arranged at equal peripheral distances thereabout, means for individually operating said blank-holding members to holding and releasing positions at predetermined points in each cycle of operations, a companion carriage in operative engagement with said rotatable carriage, adapted to effect the mtermittent rotative movement of said first companion carriage in position to act on the individual blanks as they are held in said rotatable carriage, printing members adapted to be revolved into engagement with the individual blanks as they are held in position in said rotatable carriage, and a friction wheel adapted to operatively engage the several blank-holding members as they are severally presented to the printing members to effect the timed rotative movement thereof complementarily to that of the printing member then acting.

7 In combination with a pair of rotatable carriage members operatively located relatively to one another, a series of blankclamping members arranged peripherally of one of said carriage members, a series of printing blocks arranged peripherally of the other of said carriage members, means for causing rotative movement of the blanks held in said clamping members during the period when they are being acted upon by said printing blocks, and means for successively actuating said blank-clamping members into seizing and releasing position with respect to the individual blanks engaged by each.

In testimony whereof, I sign this specification in the presence of two witnesses.

EUGENE S. BRADFORD. 

